How did IPAs become so popular?

"6 or 7 years ago" is when IPA's reached the point of being the largest craft style, obviously they were available long before that in the climb to #1. The below stats might not reflect your local market or explain your friends' awareness of the style.

 

I've always kind of thought they were the calling card of this thing with these smallish places that used to be known as microbreweries, and that the IPA is kind of an overall shorthand for craft beer.
The business of selling IPA's has certainly been significant in the rearranging the deck chairs of the big craft breweries over the past decade with new regional powerhouses growing into the market, and in the overall buyout program of the even bigger breweries that make their money off of fizzy yellow stuff.
It's not a sudden surge of popularity. Not at all. We're fully into beer 2.0, or even 3.0 at this point with craft and "craft", and also with the science of both, and with what hops are doing, and also with what yeasts are being brought onto market. IPA's are kind of the open testing ground for each of these, and especially with the turn around time that can be achieved.
6 - 7 years ago, there were 2,051 operating breweries as of April 30, 2012. There are currently over 7000 breweries open.
Since you mention a 7 year cycle. There were 1,394 breweries open in 2005.

 

I'd put us at 4.0 at this point, maybe even 5.0. But, yeah, beers featuring American hops have been popular from the get-go, and very IPA-ish even though the term didn't gain traction until the mid 90s. It's hardly a sudden thing.

 

You knew that IPA was a real 'thing' when even Jim Koch, who used to proclaim that he would not make IPAs, added IPAs as year-round products in the Sam Adams portfolio. For example, Rebel IPA was introduced in 2013.

Cheers!

 

I started getting into craft in like '04, and I distinctly remember how at that time Stone IPA was the shit. Is it more popular now? Yeah, maybe, but it's pretty much always been a top style in modern American craft beer.

 

My taste buds are 90% back which means, no more IPA love for me... So, no clue why IPA's are so favored. For the briefest of moments, I understood IPA love. Not anymore.

 

I didn't start drinking beer until 2001/2002. Didn't really get into craft until 2005/2006. So sometimes I struggle with whether I was out of the loop on things, or the loop just hadn't existed yet.

Surprisingly, many times, it wasn't me.

 

Not sure I would call this a "Sudden" surge its been very popular for some time now. Does having IPA around make your drinking experience any less? I am always curious why people single out the IPA as if its a demon, its a popular style that beer drinkers love, not sure the issue.
Cheers

 

IMO IPA's are popular is that brewers call many brews that should be named something else IPA.

 

To answer the question on a more basic level, it's "the biggest and the best". IPAs have a big flavor and people respond to that because it's easy to taste what's there. Before IPAs it was stouts, or strong beers. Back in the late 80's/early 90's malty beers were in. But to a lot of people stouts/strong/malty can be too much whereas IPAs still give you drinkability.

Secondly, because of that, IPA has just become the most recent buzz word and it's really caught on. For people who don't really know what they're doing it's easy to fall back on, just like some people used to fall back on "white zinfandel" years ago.

 

I always remember IPA's having a following, but it was more niche. Hop Devil was either the #1 or #2 beer on BA when I first discovered the site. The "hop head" guys with the hats were at GABF going back as far as I can remember. Most every small brewery or brewpub had one in their lineup, but the idea of having multiples would have been pretty odd.

I think I knew IPA's hit the big time was when Westy 12 lost the #1 spot on the top 100. That was unthinkable for a long time. That was around the time that breweries like Alpine, Alchemist, Kern River, Lawson's, Hill Farmstead, and some others really started developing strong nationwide buzz in spite of being tiny places that didn't distro at all.

 

Because they're good is the short answer. Longer answer is probably a combination of that style being synonymous with craft beer, the variety of types (west coast, NE, east coast, milkshake, hazy, brut, etc), and availability from craft breweries.

 

The addition of Hazy/NEIPA may be part of the reason why there's a perceived increase in popularity.

 

Agree, seems like they are more in hype than traditional IPA.

 

IPAs must still be the shiznit:

“AleSmith Owner, Peter Zien shared his enthusiasm for the new IPA by sharing, “2019 is a big year for AleSmith! Our newest IPA, with its tantalizing combination of new-era hops is sure to please the most discerning IPA fan”.

https://www.beeradvocate.com/community/threads/alesmith-releases-luped-in-ipa.609909/

Cheers!

 

Oh yeah, I remember back in '04 when I got into craft. I found a bomber of Stone IPA (no clue how fresh, they probably didn't date the bottles, and no one checked back then) and was ecstatic.

And if you found a bottle of Ruination...OH MAN!


But the love for American hops have been a thing for quite some time now. How long was (maybe still is?) Sierra Nevada Pale Ale the number one selling craft beer in America?

This was the first turning point. When Heady Topper overtook Westvleteren 12 as the number 1 beer on Beer Advocate. And I believe it held that spot for years, with brief stints of Pliny the Younger overtaking it.

The trend towards fruitier notes in IPAs started around then. I remember Sculpin was the number one IPA (Heady is a double) on Beer Advocate, as it was one of the first to combine bitter/piney notes with fruitier notes, with an emphasis on fruitier notes. And it also dropped off very quickly, also one of the first beers I can remember people obsessing over drinking within a month.

And then people emulated this, and just took the fruit-forward IPA another big step forward with the likes of Trillium, Tree House, and Hill Farmstead. The New England style was what really caused the IPA style to take off in popularity...and as breweries emulated this popular style, more and more of them popped up...

 

IPAs became so popular by:

1. Gaining prestige originally for being remarkably inaccessible due to their bitterness, such that they could be enjoyed only by the most committed of beer aficionados, of which there were few
2. Morphing in recent years into becoming in fact extremely accessible by eschewing the bitterness that originally earned IPAs respect and replacing it with sweetness and "juiciness" that appealed much more broadly while somehow not losing their cachet
3. Thus positioning IPAs to take advantage of the huge influx of image-conscious, inexperienced drinkers attracted to the newly cool culture of craft beer at least as much as they were to craft beer as a beverage

That's a simplified story, of course, but, I contend, a broadly accurate one.

 

IPA used to be a scaffold to get to. If you could choke down a piney Stone IPA or Green Flash IPA, that was your craft beer card. I remember the first IPA that changed that kind of thinking was Sculpin. Sculpin used to be rarely available, hard to get. I used to bring bombers home from SD on the plane.

Now, IPA are a gateway craft beer. They're high in alcohol and have easily identifiable flavors, less "beer" than an alcoholic drink. And they're popular, so people will drink them because lots of other people are drinking them too.

For me, they're fine. I did the Stone --> Sculpin --> Pliny --> Heady --> Hill --> TH thing. I'm over it. Lagers under 6%, Allagash, Oxbow, JK. That's where I am at. Much better flavor, nuance, ABV, et al. for my tastebuds.

 

I find that personally I’m going firmly back to my roots. It might not be cool but I still like AALs, and I’m going more to Pils. Don’t get me wrong I still love a great IPA, but I find most to be a bit boring and predictable. IMO there’s not much worse than a mediocre ipa, it’s a waste of taste buds.